


Red Tsubaki

by hellkitty



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 04:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>LOL I am a noob for this fandom. Set during the chunin exams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Tsubaki

The sound woke her, the kind of sound that was trying not to be heard. Her eyes flicked open, opal white under the darkness.   
  
An infirmary room. Again. She heard her own huffing sigh of frustration, that bled into a whimper of pain. She would never make chunin. Neji was right, she was always too weak, too afraid.   
  
Another sound, closer, and she sat up, one hand clutching at the thin blanket over her. “Kakashi sensei?” She couldn’t explain how she knew, but she was always able to recognize others, even in the dark. Kakashi seemed in a sense to be the most real thing in the room, nearly shimmering the air around him with life.   
  
“Hinata.” Kakashi settled down on the windowledge, lean arms folding over his chest. His Leaf Village badge rested over his Sharingan eye, his face in its usual lopsided smile, as though nothing was wrong.   
  
Everything was wrong.   
  
She’d let her family down, let her team down. It felt awful, worse than the pain from Neji blocking her chakra. Only Naruto’s words had kept her from giving up entirely.   
  
“I…how’s Naruto? And the others?”   
  
“Fine, Hinata. They’re all fine.”  
  
“Should…should you be there? In case your team needs you?”   
  
“We’re taking a break.” He looked over his shoulder, at the moonwashed forest behind him. “Besides, if they need me, I’m sure I’ll hear the explosion.”   
  
It was an attempt at a joke. Hinata recognized that much and managed a wan smile.   
  
“They’ll be coming by later,” Kakashi said, turning back around, fixing her with his sole eye. “I think Naruto’s out looking for flowers.”

“Flowers?”   
  
“For you.”   
  
“Me?” Hinata heard her own voice squeak.   
  
A soft chuckle. “Naruto is a bit…familiar with the inside of an infirmary room. I think he finds them a bit, well, dreary.”   
  
“It is, a little,” Hinata said, looking around with new eyes. Naruto’s eyes. He never gave up, even when he was injured. She felt a little stronger, just thinking that Naruto had been here, too, in the infirmary, in a bed. But he probably hadn’t spent his time feeling upset about Neji, or her family, or herself. Naruto never felt sorry for himself, she thought. And that was why he was so strong and brave.   
  
There was a burst of noise outside the door, a protesting medic, and then a wonderfully familiar voice. “Hey, no way! These are for Hinata!”   
  
Hinata struggled to sit up in the bed, tugging the thin blanket over her shoulders, one worried hand trying to smooth her hair, grimacing as she came across the rough patch of a scab. There was no way to hide it. “N-naruto?”  
  
The door flew open, Naruto standing in the door frame, flanked by a worried looking Sakura and Sasuke, scowling at the corner. He had a green-paper bungle in one hand, the other still splayed from where he’d shoved the door aside. “We came to visit you, HInata!” Naruto announced, as though expecting challenge.   
  
“I-it’s good to see you,” Hinata said, managing a weak smile. “Thank you for coming.”   
  
“Of course we came,” Sakura said. “We wanted to see how you were doing, and if there was anything we could do.”  
  
“Oh. Oh. I’m fine, better, much better, “ Hinata stammered. She looked frantically at Kakashi sensei, who merely gave her a nod.   
  
“We don’t want to tire you out,” Sakura said, casting a studious eye over Hinata. She could feel the other girl's eyes on the wound on her head, the dark scab and sweling.   
  
“No, no, I just woke up, really. It’s so good to see you.”  
  
“It’s good to have visitors, that’s what I told ‘em!” Naruto said, proudly. He seemed oblivious, or immune, to the wound on her head. He thrust out the green paper to her. “And we got you these so you have something to look at.”   
  
She struggled to her elbows, to take the green bundle, barely catching the sheet as it slipped from her shoulders. “Flowers,” she said. It had been part of her training, the art of flower arranging. It was thoughtful of Naruto to remember that.   
  
“Yeah, something to look at, you know, girl stuff,” Naruto said, perching his orange jumpsuit on the side of the bed. “Sakura wanted to get you all these little cherry blossoms and stuff but I said that they were like way too small and the color was boring, so I got you these instead.”   
  
These. Paper crinkled, as she carefully unrolled it, to reveal a bunch of bright, blazing red camellias. “Ts-tsubaki,” she choked.   
  
Kakashi cleared his throat, loudly, by the window. “They are, uh, they are bright, Naruto.”   
  
“What?” Naruto looked between Kakashi and Hinata, puzzled. “What’d I do? Why’s she all red like that? You allergic to ‘em or something?” He reached to take the flowers away from her, but she clutched them to her chest, white eyes sparkling.   
  
“Aww man, flowers aren’t supposed to make you sad!” Naruto said.   
  
“I-I’m not sad. They’re beautiful, Naruto.” Red tsubaki. They meant ‘love’. She buried her face in the rare silk of their petals, hoping, wishing, they spoke truth.


End file.
